History · Grade 12

Economics SEL activities

18 ready to use activities that teach Economics content and build one Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) skill, about 20 minutes each.

Matched to textbook chapters: Econ Alive! The Power to Choose, Economics, Economics: Principles in Action.

Scarcity, Choice, and Markets

• Thinking Like an Economist Self-awareness · Week 1Students list the choices they already make with limited time and money and name the economist identity they bring into class.
• The Cost of Every Choice Responsible decision-making · Week 2Calculating opportunity cost and marginal benefit, then using the same reasoning to weigh one real decision about how to spend an afternoon.
• Why Incentives Work Self-management · Week 3Comparing monetary and nonmonetary incentives and discovering which motivators actually move students toward their own goals.
• Caring for What We Share Social awareness · Week 4Examining how property rights and stewardship shape the use of scarce desert water and considering how shared spaces are cared for when no one owns them.
• Markets and Freedom Responsible decision-making · Week 5Reading Adam Smith alongside economists who stress the limits of markets and practicing how to summarize a view fairly before responding to it.
• Supply, Demand, and Dates Self-management · Week 6Charting how a heat wave affects the supply and price of Coachella Valley dates and noticing how students' own stress rises and falls with the demands on their time.

Business, Competition, and Labor

• Profit and the Entrepreneur Self-management · Week 7Studying the role of profit and risk for entrepreneurs, including family businesses in the valley, and sketching one small creative venture.
• Competition and Quality Relationship skills · Week 8Analyzing how competition affects price and quality and distinguishing healthy competition from rivalry that damages relationships.
• When Prices Are Capped Responsible decision-making · Week 9Examining the intended and unintended effects of price controls such as rent control through the views of several economists, and pausing to separate feelings from evidence.
• Why Unions Formed Relationship skills · Week 10Studying why workers formed unions, including the United Farm Workers in the Coachella Valley, alongside the concerns of employers, and practicing collective problem-solving.
• Why Jobs Pay Differently Self-awareness · Week 11Using supply, demand, and productivity to explain differences in wages and mapping the skills students want to grow next.
• Work in a Changing Economy Self-management · Week 12Exploring how automation and global competition change jobs and naming coping strategies for an uncertain future.

Government, the Macroeconomy, and Global Trade

• What Government Does in Markets Responsible decision-making · Week 13Weighing arguments for and against government roles in markets from several economic perspectives and practicing a fair summary of a view one does not hold.
• Taxes, Spending, and Choices Social awareness · Week 14Examining the aims of fiscal policy and modeling a budget in which different community members' needs compete for limited funds.
• The Fed and Your Wallet Self-awareness · Week 15Explaining how the Federal Reserve influences interest rates and applying the idea of delayed reward to personal saving.
• Reading the Economy's Pulse Self-awareness · Week 16Calculating unemployment and inflation rates and comparing nominal with real data, then checking in on students' own emotional indicators.
• Trade Across Borders Social awareness · Week 17Comparing gains from trade with the concerns of workers, businesses, and farmers about free trade, and listening for the interests behind each view.
• Gratitude for the Hands Behind Our Goods Relationship skills · Week 18Students trace one everyday product back through the workers who made it and write thank you notes to people whose work sustains them.

RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.